


Goodbye My Friend (Be the Light You Are)

by MadamRogers



Series: Years Gone By [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/M, Funeral, Longing, reader - Freeform, speech, steve rogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:25:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7440910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadamRogers/pseuds/MadamRogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Steve Rogers has feared has come. He gives a speech in [y/n]'s funeral and is remembering a few moments with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye My Friend (Be the Light You Are)

It happened two days after their last phone call.

 

Steve knew the day would come. But when it came, he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to say his goodbyes, wasn’t ready to cry for his loss. He looked back the days he had with her and counted them all, looked again and saw the happiness in the eyes of that old lady who once was like a sister to him. She still was. She was like his sister until the last day. _Till the end of the line_ , she had written. _And after that_ , Steve added and wiped away his tears.

 

He looked down at the piece of paper he had in his hands, but that wasn’t helping. He had lost his words; those on the paper were like foreign language he couldn’t read. He couldn’t reach the words, they were on a tip of his tongue, but didn’t get to live. He breathed, did it again and tried to speak.

 

A blurry voice came from his mouth. Words tried to find their way out, but they died before they could find it. Steve knew they were looking at him. He had been standing there for a few minutes now. The microphone gave them his breaths and shaking, little tries of speaking. They looked at him, but no one said a word.

 

It had to be him, they had said. There was no one else. She had wanted it to be him. And he said yes, did that because he wanted to respect the wish of his friend. That was the reason he was standing there in front of all those people. Steve’s breaths and voices echoed in the church, he looked up from the paper in his hands, took a step and forced himself to talk.

 

“I knew [y/n] as a kid, as a young woman, as my friend, and as what I could call a sister. She was always there when I needed her, made me feel better and see the light behind the darkness,” Steve breathed again. “We were just two kids from Brooklyn, two kids who wanted to do their part in a war. I got to do that, and time after time she had the strength to say how proud she was. She was the one who kicked me when I couldn’t do something; she was the one who said that dreams are made to be true.”

 

 

_“Steve, I see it in your eyes, don’t try to deny it,” you said as you walked beside Steve. He was looking at the ground; a light, hovering smile was dancing on the corner of his mouth. You saw it, it made you smile, but you still looked at him, took his arm and made him to stop. “If that’s what you wanna do, then you do it.”_

_“[y/n], I –“_

_“Steve, look at me,” you made him to look you in the eye. “You need to believe in yourself. Don’t care what they say, don’t care about anyone! Care about your dream, what you want to do. Dreams are made to be true, Steve.”_

 

 

“But no, I was proud of her. I’m not sure did I… Did I ever say that to her,” he stammered, looked at the paper again and was silent for a moment. His lingering gaze at the paper made him think he couldn’t do it. Steve closed his eyes, took a deep breath and went on.

 

“[y/n] always encouraged me to be the light I am. I still am not sure did she actually mean the light she thought I am, but when she said it, I believed in myself. I had had the serum, but I didn’t actually believe in myself.”

 

 

_You stood in front of him, tapped his uniform’s blue a little while biting your lower lip and kept looking at his physique. “Steve, Steve, Steve…” It made him smile. He looked at your face, tried to catch your eye, but you looked at the star on his chest and sighed. “My brave Steve, my hero.”_

_“I wouldn’t be here without you,” Steve said in a low voice._

_“Yes, you would.”_

_“No, I meant that… You were the one who kicked me; you were the one who made me to do this. You and Bucky always believed in me.”_

_You looked over your shoulder to see Bucky standing there, speaking with other Howling Commandoes. “We still do. We will always believe in you, Steve.” When you looked at Steve again, you saw that beautiful light in his blue eyes. It made you smile shortly and put your arms around him. He squeezed you, lifted you up a little._

_“Go, be a hero,” you said when Howling Commandoes moved a little, looked at Steve like they were waiting. Steve smiled at you, touched your hand and promised to come back. “I know,” you said and waved to Bucky when the men left with their captain._

 

 

“She didn’t care about Captain America; she saw who I was beneath the uniform. To her I was just Steve. No matter what, I was that same Steve who loved to listen to her voice when she was reading or who was like a brother to her. We were like brother and sister, but somehow it was something more, too. And that’s why I’m standing here, I’m here to respect [y/n]’s wish and I hope she hears this wherever she is.”

 

Steve looked at the picture beside the white coffin and felt how his heart was about to break. And he stared at the picture’s frames when he said, “Last time we spoke was two days before she died. I think she knew she was going to die. It was a nice phone call. Her voice was pure and for the last time… Full of life. I could see her eyes; I could imagine how they tore up when we were remembering the old days together. She was happy. She told me how she thought I wasn’t. She had felt that in my hug last time. I guess that was the moment I realized she was… She was saying her goodbyes. [y/n] made me to promise her I’ll be happy. I made that promise and I’m trying to keep it. For her sake. She lived all those years loving me, so it’s the least I can do. I’ll miss her, my longing is not gonna leave me until we meet again, but until we do, I try to remember what she said to me.”

 

He looked at the paper again, its last line, the only sentence what was left of his speech. Behind his lashes he saw how people wiped away their tears, and so did he. He took one last breath and said the last sentence with voice full of sadness and growing pain, “Be the light you are.”

 

When they lowered her coffin safely on the ground and people walked off, Steve stood there by the grave. He looked at the barrow in front of him, let his tears fall down his cheeks. Hands in his pockets he stood there, tried to say something, but failed. The barrow was full of flowers; Steve found the ones he had put there. And on top of the bunch of flowers he put the little piece of paper he had ripped off of his note.

 

When Steve walked away hands still in his pockets, that little piece of paper waved to him. There was this sentence on it, written with a shaking hand, “ _Be the light you are_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave some comments, I'm more than happy to get those!


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